Michael Letcher asked: The recent Florida property insurance law passed by the Florida Legislature and signed by Governor Charlie Crist was an important step towards improving the financial stability of the Florida insurance system. It allows Florida’s state run insurance company – Citizens Property Insurance Corporation to start raising its rates as much as 10% per year starting in 2010 as part of a multi-year process to move the company towards more actuarially sound rates. Private Florida home insurance companies will also be able to get rate increases in the future as they purchase more reinsurance from the private market instead of from the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund.The bright spot is that the Florida insurance system will be on a much stronger financial footing in the coming years if the state can continue the limited hurricane activity it has enjoyed during the past few years – something that has to happen to improve the chances that most Florida home insurance companies can make good on their promise to pay your hurricane claim quickly and fairly.The bad news is the fact that all of us will be facing up to a 10% increase in Florida homeowner insurance rates. A rate increase of 10% might not sound like much of an increase in other states but in Florida the situation is much different. These increases will be based on higher premiums already in effect after the major rate increases approved after the 2004/2005 Florida hurricanes. Even before the coming 10% increase, consumers in Florida were already paying the highest home insurance rates in the country.The rate increases could not be coming at a worse time. To begin with, Florida is in the middle of a financial crisis just like the rest of the country with depressed real estate, bankruptcies, foreclosure, and increases in unemployment. These rate increases are going to start happening at the exact same time that State Farm Florida will start cancelling up to 30,000 policies per month as they start exiting the Florida property insurance market. Our subscribers who presently have their insurance with State Farm are telling us that finding comparable coverage with another Florida home insurance company may cost them up to 200% more after they lose their coverage with State Farm.So what is the bottom line for you as a Florida homeowner insurance consumer as we move through this challenging period?First you have to understand that while there are only about 40 Florida home insurance companies still writing new business, if you shop around you have a good chance of finding 5-10 companies that are still willing to cover your home – even if it is an older home or has close proximity to the coast.It is very important for you to shop your Florida home insurance policy with more than one independent agent – someone who represents multiple Florida homeowner insurance companies looking for your business. Contacting multiple independent agent will ensure that you are able to get quotes from all the companies in your county who want to cover your home – not just the Florida home insurance companies carried by a single agent.Also, you have to do due diligence and research on all of the Florida homeowners insurance companies that you are getting quotes from. The 40 companies still willing to write new business vary greatly in terms of their size, financial resources, insurance industry experience, and customer service history. It is important that you ask your agent how each of the companies you are considering is performing in each of these areas.As you come up with a short list of companies, work with several independent Florida insurance agents and make sure that you have received quotes from all the companies in your county that are interested in covering your home. As you evaluate the quotes, don’t buy the Florida insurance for your home simply on price. Find the right balance of financial stability, outstanding customer service, and the price of the policy. After all, paying a low price for Florida home insurance isn’t really a bargain if the company you pick pays slowly and won’t pay the full amount that you need to repair the damage to your home after a Florida hurricane?There is little doubt that these recently approved increases in Florida home insurance will be very difficult to swallow and the timing is very bad. However, if you take the time to find all of the Florida home insurance companies that are interested in covering your home, you might be able to fight off all of the 10% increase while everyone else has to pay up. Your research can save you thousands!Lawyers

What would you do if you were in a situation that your house was burned down to the ground because of a fire, or someone robbed your house and took that brand new 46 inch television that you had bought or even expensive jewelry or maybe even your child’s laptop?What if you did not have enough money to replace them and even if you did would you still have enough money left over to spend on other things even though you had already spent your hard earned money on those specific items?Having home insurance will help protect you if any of these incidents happen. Home insurance provides you with money to fix your home if you are the owner of the home. It also gives you money to replace damaged or stolen property such as clothes, expensive car collection and the items that I have listed above.It also offers you liability protection in case someone gets hurt in your home or if you somehow injure someone or damage their property and it does not matter where it happens. They have the great benefit of giving you money to cover any additional living expenses that may occur if you are forced to move out of your home because of a fire or other type of disaster.The majority of home insurance companies offer three different policies and it is up to you to pick the one that will satisfy you best. InsureMe.com is one such insurance company that has been around since 1993 and has been helping a great amount of consumers save money on their home insurance. Getting quotes on home insurance has never been easier. They have a free service, you simply enter your information once and you are instantly matched with the most competitive companies in the business. You will get back a low cost quote so you can compare and save what a great way to save money.Photos Union

Hurricane Andrew and continuing to this day, Florida home insurance companies have continued to pull out of the state or seek significant rate increases. Why? Because both Florida homeowners insurance companies and state regulators can’t seem to agree on the right amount that consumers should pay for the hurricane portion of their Florida home insurance bill.So starting in the 1990’s, the State of Florida started to charge special assessments on each Florida home insurance policy written and formed an insurance company of last resort which today is called Citizens Property Insurance Corporation to make sure that everyone in Florida has at least one insurance company willing to cover their home or business.The state also created an entity called The Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund that requires all licensed Florida home insurance companies to purchase reinsurance once the cost of a major hurricane exceeds a certain level. This fund is insurance for Florida insurance companies and helps to make sure that they don’t have to absorb all of the costs of a major hurricane event.Finally, Florida created a legal entity called the Florida Insurance Guaranty Association (FIGA) that will pay your insurance claim if your Florida homeowners insurance company is declared insolvent.Those special assessment line items on your Florida home insurance bill can cause you to pay line item charges for many years into the future. You can be asked to make up the difference when Citizens Property Insurance Corporation and the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund don’t have the money to meet their obligations. Or you could be assessed for the difference if FIGA doesn’t have the cash to pay off the claims filed against a Florida homeowners insurance company that became insolvent.So far, at high level, each of these various entities and the protections that they offer make sense. And when they work properly they do help further diversify Florida’s hurricane risk and help make it attractive for Florida home insurance companies to continue to do business in the state.However, the Florida Property Insurance Legislation of 2007 and 2008 have changed and politicized the mission of each of these organizations to a point where they no longer work as they were intended. Why? Because Florida legislators aren’t willing to tell voters the truth – that these entities are now seriously underfunded and not positioned to do what they are supposed to do. Even worse, many Florida consumers don’t realize that they are paying for someone else’s Florida home insurance.At the present time, both the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund and Citizens Property Insurance Corporation are underfunded and heavily dependent on an unfriendly bond market to meet their obligations. Both have to try to borrow in advance of Florida hurricanes with mixed success to raise the cash that they need and are coming up short as the country works through the financial crisis.Citizens Property Insurance Corporation is the one organization that causes each of us to subsidize the Florida insurance costs of someone else. Every one of us will be required to pay annual special assessments for many years into the future to cover the cash shortfalls that Citizens Property Insurance had as a result of the 2004/2005 storms. Cash shortfalls are just another way of saying that those who were insured with Citizens for the 2004/2005 storms, were simply not charged enough premium for that coverage. Many of those homes are older homes located near the Florida coast directly in hurricane alley. After the 2004/2005 Florida hurricanes, Florida lawmakers froze the rates being charged by Citizens – a politically popular move that also had the effect of making everyone in Florida no matter where they live, subsidize the Florida home insurance rates of those who live in the most hurricane prone areas of Florida.Last but not least, because the rates of Citizens have been frozen for the past few years, even when consumers can find Florida home insurance in the private market, they are still given the choice of being insured by Citizens and being undercharged for their insurance.This subsidized insurance that many Citizen policyholders receive, comes at a price. It is paid for primarily through special assessments that we all pay as part of our Florida home insurance bills each year. These assessments have become so burdensome, that Florida home insurance policies are not enough to pay the total cost. That’s why you’ll see many of them on your Florida auto and business insurance bills as well.If you are fed up with paying the Florida homeowners insurance premiums of someone else, now is the time to have your voice heard during the current session of the Florida Legislature. Tell the lawmakers that you’ve voted for and sent to Tallahassee that you want the Florida home insurance rates of Citizens Property Insurance Corporation raised to reflect the true cost of the homes they are covering.Photos Union